Robert Rorabeck Poems

And I will sit alongside the deep
Shelter of my apartment,
After that occasion where my parents
Have died,
...

This is not Chaucer,
But I’ve had the chance to finish it
Before I die:
So I love you,
...

Mother,
I want another cigarette.
I come into your room
When you are not looking,
...

I have this sailboat under my
Left eye- it doesn’t diminish even
When I sail out in it looking for you-
But I used to be beautiful,
...

I wake up from Saint Louis with news scars on
My lap,
And errors waiting for the page:
I wake up closer to noon than I ever done,
...

The river is full of dreams—
I haven’t seen them, but I
Would not lie about them:
She has the colors of our flag scaled
...

I’ll bend down to clean my car
And when I’ll look up there’ll be:

Glittering tombs
...

I’ll pick-pocket in the black suites of Halloween—
I’ll look down into the great ovoid valleys where my father
Is turning his tractor for no other reason than he is
Perplexed,
...

Unquiet, lasting quiet,
Even under the tallest buildings the world
Is moving and trying to get it done,
And I try to stay away from there,
...

Sabotage me with scars and parking lots,
And take me outside the dirty city and down to
The dirty sea;
And why do my farts smell like my dreams for
...